The Emergence of the Wildland- Urban Interface Concept
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The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is a common story line in many of today’s wildfire events. The WUI concept was formally introduced in 1987 Forest Service Research budget documents but was not acknowledged as a major component for federal fire management until the 2000 National Fire Plan. Although the 1987 introduction was meant to increase research focus on demographic factors influencing fire and other resource management, its California roots can be traced to post-World War II civil defense concerns about fire and water. The author offers a personal perspective on why the WUI concept was promoted by the Forest Service at an inauspicious time for fire research. The Emergence of the Wildland- Urban Interface Concept n January 27, 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave his sixth State of the Union address. Reagan’s speech was not well received.1 Forest Service O Research—and Fire Research in particular—had suffered through six years of the Republican president’s budget request reductions. Although these proposed reductions were partially offset by targeted (i.e., “ear- aged 51,805 fires and 2,021,846 acres burned and supported the mark”) restorations by the Democrat-controlled Congress, Forest argument that the “fire problem was solved.”2 This assumption Service research funding continually eroded. Fire activity in the would be reinforced by fire statistics that showed no discernible previous four years of the Reagan presidency (1983–86) had aver- upward trend. With the exception of the Yellowstone Fires in BY WILLIAM T. SOMMERS 12 FOREST HISTORY TODAY | FALL 2008 F. E. DUNHAM, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, HISTORY SOCIETY PHOTO COLLECTION, FHS 2617 F. Scenes like this one from the Wheeler Springs fire on the Los Padres National Forest in 1948 demonstrated to fire researchers that “mass” forest fires could simulate the fires resulting from a nuclear attack. In the 1950s, federal funding increased during a boom cycle of fire research funding over such concerns and then ebbed and flowed over the next several decades. 1988, the public was not overly concerned with wildland fire In February 1987, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pre- throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s. In 1987, Smokey sented its 1988 fiscal year budget request (“The FY88 Book of Bear still ruled as the iconic representative of fire management. Notes”) to Congress.5 Beginning on page 22 of the FY88 Book By 1986, national forest timber sales had exceeded ten billion of Notes, Forest Service Research announced that it would board feet every year since the early 1960s.3 Knudsen-Vandenberg “emphasize six research initiatives during 1988.”6 The first even- (KV) obligations had crossed the $100 million annual threshold tually became the Forest Service Global Change Research in FY 1984, peaking at almost $300 million in FY 1992, and would Program, and the second was titled the Wildland-Urban Interface. not drop below the $100 million threshold again until FY 2002.4 The short description accompanying the budget tables stated, Timber sales meant that the Forest Service was a revenue-pro- “Where large urban areas are adjacent to State, Federal, and pri- ducing agency of the federal government. Aggressive fire man- vate forest lands, the intermixing of city and Wildland has… agement was justified as reducing losses of the timber resource brought about major problems in fire protection, land use plan- to the ravages of wildfire. KV funds generated by timber sales ning, and recreation impacts.” The budget table showed $300,000 were available to be drawn on for fire management when and as for this area for fire research in FY 1987, and the president was needed, with eventual replenishment by supplemental appro- asking for $300,000 in FY 1988, a zero percent increase for this priations. When the president delivered his 1987 State of the important initiative. The wildland-urban interface (WUI) con- Union address, the Forest Service fire management was viewed cept was being promoted by the Forest Service at an inauspicious as having achieved fire suppression success at a reasonable cost time for fire research. with funding buffered by timber sales. The WUI initiative drew upon two precedent streams of However, not all components of the Forest Service fire pro- research concern. The smaller stream, but more important in gram were doing well. Fire and Aviation Management dealt with terms of current WUI programs, is generally attributed to Henry federal land fire management and therefore benefited from the Vaux and colleagues starting in the 1950s, with a focus on water timber-KV-fire funding triangle. Cooperative Fire Management policy conflicts between rural interests and emerging urban pop- helped state fire organizations, mainly through distribution of ulation centers in California.7 WUI demographics research is surplus equipment, and did not benefit from the funding trian- clearly derivative of this fundamental driver of societal conflicts gle. Fire research, represented in the Forest Fire and Atmospheric over natural resources. The second stream was much more Sciences Research (FFASR) budget line item, had never been asso- important to fire research in terms of level of effort and fund- ciated with the timber parts of the Forest Service and was at one ing. This stream derived from nineteenth-century experience of the low points of its historically volatile funding cycle. with fire in America and from World War II urban fires caused FOREST HISTORY TODAY | FALL 2008 13 by incendiary bombing strategies.8 Civil defense interest in pos- Acres Burned by Fire sible mass fire involving flammable wildlands, proximate urban areas, and ignition from nuclear bombs prompted a significant amount of fire research from the 1950s through the 1970s. California was the nexus of both streams of WUI precedent research. C. P. Butler summarized the issue as “Houses built in 1986 canyons and up and down steep hills covered with native vege- tation pose a fire hazard from large Wildland fires….Threat is accentuated because the interface separating the two classes of inflammable materials is…not the responsibility of any agency.”9 “Fire at the Urban-Forest Interface,” the title of a chapter in Volume II: Fire in Forestry, by Craig C. Chandler and others, published in 1983, represents the earliest textbook mention of the WUI fire concept this author can find.10 Both Butler and Chandler were closely associated with research organizations (Stanford Research 1960–2006 Institute spin-off groups and the Forest Service Pacific Southwest SOURCE: NATIONAL INTERAGENCY FIRE CENTER SOURCE: NATIONAL Station, respectively) that conducted civil defense fire research. Chandler, the lead author of a 1963 report on mass fire resulting from nuclear attack,11 went on to serve as FFASR director until National Forest Timber Sold–1,000 BF his retirement in 1983. The 1987 launching of the WUI research initiative is more clearly understood when associated with a California-based history of intermingling of urban-rural natural & HARVEST SUMMARY” resource conflict and fire research funding for studies of mass 1986 fire from nuclear attack. THE BOOM-OR-BUST FUNDING CYCLE At the time that the president’s 1988 budget request was released, the U.S. Forest Service Fire Research Program had been going through several years of funding decline. Since the Forest Service program was the only sustained national wildland fire research program in the United States at that time, it meant U.S. wildland fire research as a whole was in budgetary decline. Forest Service 1940–2006 FFASR work was concentrated at dedicated fire laboratories in Macon, Georgia (the first to open); Missoula, Montana; and Riverside, California. A fourth laboratory in East Lansing, Michigan, was planned but never built. Additional fire research activities, Knudson-Vandenburg (KV) Funds mostly related to timber, were ongoing at several other locations. Each of the three fire labs was built specifically for fire research and thus housed specialized facilities. Macon focused on fire use, Missoula on fire impacts in natural systems, and Riverside on fire impacts on people and communities. Funding contraction dur- 1986 ing the Reagan years eventually lead to the closing of Macon and the inclusion of nonfire research at the Riverside facility. The mid-1980s proved to be both a nadir for agency fire research for- tunes and the time when the foundation was laid for the rein- vigorated fire research that emerged in the 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century. It was also the time when, hindsight shows, fire activity began the upward trend that now dominates Forest Service and other agency budgets and marked the begin- ning of a transition from natural resource-driven (i.e., timber) 1960–2006 fire management to one increasingly dominated by concerns for SOURCE: USFS “FY 1905–2007 NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SOLD & HARVEST SUMMARY”SOURCE: USFS “FY 1905–2007 NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SOLD SOURCE: USFS “FY 1905–2007 NATIONAL life and property. Few realized at the time of the 1987 State of the Union message that I had assumed responsibility for the fire research program 1986 would mark a watershed for fire management, with the years when I was appointed director of FFASR in December 1986, after ahead bringing a new era of increased fire activity. At the same time, serving as acting director for nine months. FFASR had developed there was a drop in K-V funds because of falling timber sales. The ten initiatives in the previous four years under the leadership of “Poly” line in the graphs produces a smoothed view of the data and my predecessor, Charles W. Philpot, including one for a program better reflects long-term trends. of research on what we called the wildland-urban interface and 14 FOREST HISTORY TODAY | FALL 2008 another on climate change.